Archinect - News

Berlin's Unity Monument 'seesaw' finally breaks ground

2020-05-29T18:21:00-04:00

A groundbreaking ceremony has just taken place for the Monument to Freedom and Unity, in central Berlin. The 50m-long (164ft) bowl will move gently up and down when enough people stand on it, and it should be completed by the end of next year. In a guide to the design, architects Milla & Partner, who won a competition called "Citizens in Motion", say "freedom and unity aren't static conditions, they require participation and interaction".

The monument, nicknamed "unity seesaw" by Berliners, is conceived as an enormous bowl-shaped kinetic platform that invites people to interact with each other.

Image courtesy of Milla & Partner

Stuttgart-based practice Milla & Partner in collaboration with choreographer Sasha Waltz created the "Citizens in Motion" monument proposal as part of a design competition.

View this post on Instagram A social sculpture in the heart of Berlin: the Unity Monument is designed as a kinetic object, a platform enabling people to interact with each other. Its appearance will be shaped by visitors through their #participation and interaction. Construction started this week. #einheitsdenkmal #experiencedesign #millaundpartner
A post shared by Milla & Partner (@millaundpartner) on May 20, 2020 at 8:36am PDT

Originally intended to open on November 9, 2019, the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the project faced multiple setbacks, and construction was repeatedly reschedu...

Architects install transnational pink seesaws at U.S.-Mexico border wall

2019-07-31T14:25:00-04:00

It may seem like an ordinary scene: Children and adults playing on pink seesaws, carelessly laughing and chatting with each other But this is a playground unlike any other. These custom-built seesaws have been placed on both sides of a slatted steel border fence that separates the United States and Mexico.

The binational Teetertotter Wall intervention, connecting Sunland Park, New Mexico with Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, is the brainchild of Ronald Rael, a professor of architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, and Virginia San Fratello, an associate professor of design at San José State University.

View this post on Instagram One of the most incredible experiences of my and @vasfsf’s career bringing to life the conceptual drawings of the Teetertotter Wall from 2009 in an event filled with joy, excitement, and togetherness at the borderwall. The wall became a literal fulcrum for U.S. - Mexico relations and children and adults were connected in meaningful ways on both sides with the recognition that the actions that take place on one side have a direct consequence on the other side. Amazing thanks to everyone who made this event possible like Omar Rios @colectivo.chopeke for collaborating with us, the guys at Taller Herrería in #CiudadJuarez for their fine cra...

Giant “unity seesaw” to commemorate 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall

2017-06-06T15:20:00-04:00

The German parliament approved plans to build a Memorial to Freedom and Unity in central Berlin, with an ambitious timetable that envisages the monument’s inauguration on the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 2019. Designed by the Stuttgart-based architect Johannes Milla and the Berlin choreographer Sasha Waltz, the monument will commemorate the protest movement that toppled the East German communist regime and led to the reunification of Germany in 1990.

"The monument is animate and is not to be approached merely as an object for contemplation," Milla & Partner state on their website. "The intention is that people shall actually enter it and walk on it and set it in motion, movement being achieved by visitors working together as a group."

"The design was created in a spirit where, by means of creative action, individuals are enabled to bring benefit to the community and as a consequence shape society. The visitors themselves - the citizens who set the whole in motion - become an active part of the monument. The vision is that it will be an aesthetically ambitious, continually changing choreographic expression of the Peaceful Revolution of 1989."

Images via milla.de.

"swing" by JerusaLAB Architecture

2013-05-01T13:44:00-04:00

Israeli practice JerusaLAB Architecture has sent us a tiny but mighty project titled simply, swing: a seesaw penetrating the massive concrete border fence between Israel and Palestine.

"The project claims to portray the possibility for peaceful acts in the Israeli Palestinian environment where face to face relationships are absent," designers Elena Mann and Eldar Gantz explain.

"Placing a swing inside a concrete element of the separation wall is an act that requires a blind cooperation and trust. The work suggest a positive romantic view on a conflictual relationship manifested in concrete borderline disorder."

Project Credits:

Architects: Elena Mann & Eldar Gantz
JerusaLAB Architecture, Jerusalem

Elena Mann is an interdisciplinary designer based in London. Eldar Gantz is an architect/artist based in Jerusalem.